


Memories

by HonoraryFox



Category: The Order (TV 2019)
Genre: Drama, F/F, F/M, M/M, Memory Loss, medical inaccuracies will surely abound, season 2 imagining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2020-01-06 19:19:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18394715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HonoraryFox/pseuds/HonoraryFox
Summary: Speculation at what could follow on from the season one finale.Jack Morton had a car accident. That's what he was told. He lost years of his life. He has no family that he knows of. An orphan with a scholarship. And maybe something else.After being dusted, the Knights of Saint Christopher are no more. They’re directionless and lost. Their basement has been cleared out and there’s a wolf lose and they don’t know the first thing about trying to find them.The Order are confident. Memory dust works. There's no issue with it.Until there is.The Order is a myth. The Knights are a fantasy. And that other thing? They're nothing more than a whisper.





	1. Chapter 1

Jack groaned as he woke up with a hangover for the sixth day in a row. His grandfather was dead, his mother was dead, and he had no clue who his father was. He could just about grasp at vague recollections of Pete mentioning an Edward with such visceral hatred but the second he latched onto those memories they became leaves in the wind. He could barely remember Pete’s face and found himself forgetting his mother’s name on a regular basis. He’d been hit by a car after he left the graveyard, that’s what the doctors had said, and healed miraculously. But amnesia wasn’t an uncommon effect of head trauma and he had hit the concrete quite hard.

Jack stumbled out of his room and flicked on a pot of coffee. He splashed some cold water on his face from the kitchen sink. He’d pieced together bits of his life from old school records he’d found, from scrolling through social media and reading old text books. Those seemed to help the most, at least academically. After a glance over most of the pages he could remember everything about the topic. It was a shame he didn’t have anything to do that with of his own writing. 

The post held nothing interesting. Bills addressed to his grandfather and the obligatory ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ card from someone who knew Pete or his mom. He never knew which because he didn’t recognise any of the names. He’d kept mostly to himself since he left the hospital, he needed to get a job or something to keep himself afloat but he was happily using up what was left of the cash and food in the house for the time being.

The phone call he got that morning threw a wrench into his life. Or at least made it more complicated than it already was.

“Mr. Morton?”

“Uh, yes?”

“I’m calling from the administrative department at Belgrave University.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“We’re missing parts of your paperwork to complete your registration in the fall on our academic scholarship program.”

“Part of my what?”

“Your scholarship, Mr. Morton.” 

“Sorry, you’re going to have to fill me in a bit here. I have a scholarship to Belgrave University?”

“Yes.” The voice on the other end of the phone began to sound annoyed. “You sent in your paperwork accepting your place two months ago.”

“Oh.” Jack’s heart jumped into his throat. 

“Oh?”

“Um, I’m sorry. I got into an accident about a week ago. I lost my memory.”

“Hm, well. I’m sorry to hear that Mr. Morton, but your paperwork is still incomplete. Are you planning to attend in the fall or shall I retract the offer?”

“No, no. Um, I’ll come. I want to come. I just… I didn’t know.”

“Well then. You need to come sign some forms before we can process your enrolment fully for the fall. Tomorrow, 3pm.”

“Yes, yes. I’ll be there.”

“Good bye.”

“B-“ The phone line went dead before Jack had the chance to get the word out.

“What the fuck?” He whispered.

Welcome, everyone, and congratulations on your acceptance to Belgrave University.

Jack turned to find the voice he had just heard. He’d never stepped foot on Belgrave University property, had he? His heart was beating a little too quickly, and his grip on reality was a little too loose as he poured himself the coffee. Was that a memory or a fantasy?

Probably just the hangover, Jack decided, and a helpful dose of wishful thinking. Or something from a prospective student day or similar. He scrubbed his face and went back to his room with his coffee in hand.

He picked up a photo of himself and a man he had to assume was his grandfather and wondered if he would have been proud of him. Would his grandfather drop him off on his first day, sunshine smiles and beaming pride? Did Pete have another plan for him? Would he have refused to speak to him after his acceptance and moved on with life without him?

Jack dropped down onto his bed and tossed the picture to the side. He looked around his room and, not for the first time, he felt a pang at the lack of familiarity he had with the place. There was no emotion there, he had no attachment to the posters on his wall or the stuffed animal on his shelf, the one that was so obviously well loved and worn with age but kept clean and fresh by someone who loved it. Jack was left to assume that that someone was him.

He remembered the day he had woken up in the hospital, the steady beeping of the heart monitor a constant irritation. The confusion, fear, and loneliness. The subsequent anger and hatred, directed both at himself and whatever had happened it him. It didn’t feel fair, not at all. He got out of there as soon as he could and spent every moment since holed up in the house that was on his drivers license.

When he’d walked in everything had been chaos. His mind, his body, the house. It all felt so wrong. Walking into the life of a stranger felt wrong. But now that same stranger had gifted him an opportunity to reinvent himself. To find out who he is now and make a new start in the fall. Now he just had to figure out how to start living again and who he had become since he’d woken up. Luckily he had some time before then.

~~~

“Jack Morton?” Vera stared at the registration paper in her hand. “How is he a student here? The Order revoked his scholarship. We removed all traces of Morton from our system.” She slammed the paper down on her desk and turned on the Order members in front of her. “Now, who fucked this up? No one?” Vera lent back to rest against her desk. “Well then. Take this as my warning. Any contact with Jack Morton by a member of this Order will not be tolerated. Is that clear?”

“But the obfusca-“ Someone piped up in the back of the room. Vera’s eyes snapped over the the speaker and narrowed.

“Is. That. Clear?”  
“Yes, Magus.” The room chorused. Alyssa lingered in the room longer that she perhaps should have, but something about Jack’s name being mentioned overruled her rationality. The sting of losing him had lessened over time, but the guilt of wiping him lingered on. She wasn’t sure how much of the others’ memories had been taken, presumably not as much as she took from Jack, but she did know Lilith, Randall, and Hamish had all be listed as taking personal time over the past academic year by The Order’s hand. She hadn’t been a part of that one.

“Is there a problem, Miss Drake?” Vera asked from her perch on the grand desk. Alyssa found she was more surprised at the question than would have been expected.

“Uh, no, Magus. Everything is fine.” An easy smile slid into place, one she had practiced over the previous months.

“I understand that it will be harder for you than most to stay away from Mister Morton, but do not forget that this is for the good of The Order. The good of the humanity we try to protect.”

“Yes, Magus, of course.”

“You may go.” Vera spun off the desk and walked behind it to the chair. “Oh, and Miss Drake?” She called to Alyssa’s retreating back. Alyssa turned her head back. “Work on that smile, you’re only fooling idiots.” Alyssa’s gaze hardened but nodded and strode out of the room.

A flick of her wrist and Vera had the doors closed. The drawer on to her left had been left mostly closed since she put the Vade Mecum in there, but there was something of a song that she could hear in its pages that she couldn’t quite lock away. Not yet.

Alyssa lent against the doors to the office and tried to gather her thoughts. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Jack back at Belgrave, except that she didn’t, but his appearance would complicate matters. A lot of matters. The kind of matters that he would, no doubt, end up involving himself in completely by accident because that is just the kind of person he is. Or was. Alyssa couldn’t say what the obfuscation powder had done to the person that Jack was. She had taken so many of his memories that there was no real way that he could be the same boy she fell in love with. And she knew that would sting every time she saw him.

Alyssa knew, though, that eventually it would stop hurting every time she saw him. She’d been slowly getting over him for months since she dusted him and piece by piece she was figuring out where she was going next.

The walk back to her room felt longer and colder than it really was. Ice had settled in her veins since Vera called a meeting. Despite having been promoted she felt less trusted than ever. She had proven herself by dusting Jack, then again by falsifying testimonies and police reports. She had done everything that the Order had asked of her, but something left her on the outside.

There was something in the way that Vera looked at her now, there was pride but also some kind of fear. Alyssa shook her head and left the temple. She had finals to prepare for, and classes to attend at the very least, on top of that she had her own projects that she wanted to complete. 

~~~

“Guys!” Lilith shouted from the basement. She’d gone for a run that morning and woken up in the dirt with no visible reason as to why. She had decided not telling Hamish and Randall was for the best, and then when she got back and neither of them were home she took the opportunity to clean up and hide any evidence. Then she went into the basement.

Everything was gone. Cleared out. They had nothing. “The fuck?” And then, “The hides.” Panic swelled in her eyes as she darted for the door. When she saw that all the chests were still there she allowed herself to feel a small amount of relief, but not fully. Not until she’d checked inside all of them. If someone had broken in and taken everything in their basement, something bad must have happened.

Greybeard’s chest was still empty, as was Tundra’s, and her own, which she didn’t bother checking. Silverback was still in his chest, but Midnight was gone. Lilith closed the chest and opened it again, to make sure she hadn’t imagined it. Midnight’s hide was gone, there was no mistaking it. There was a creak of footsteps on the floorboards above her. Lilith grabbed the chest and ran upstairs with it, almost right into Randall and Hamish.

“Whoa.” Hamish held his hand out to steady Lilith as she fumbled a bit with the sudden reduction in speed. “What’s going on?” Both Hamish and Randall were looking at the chest in her hands, and then to each other. Neither wanting to be the first to make an assumption about what was happening. 

“Midnight’s hide is gone.”

“What.” Hamish didn’t frame it as a question but it was clearly a statement of disbelief. He grabbed the chest from Lilith and laid it on the table in the foyer. Randall peeked around Hamish’s side as the chest lid was lifted with extreme caution.

“Holy shit.” Randall’s eyes bulged at the empty chest. “But that means…”

“We have a rogue werewolf on our hands.” Hamish confirmed.

“That’s not everything. I only checked because everything in the basement is gone, the books, the artefacts, all of it. Someone cleaned us out.”

“And got more than they bargained for in the process.” Randall finished. Hamish nodded, he was frowning but didn’t look hopeless.

“So we find the wolf, we find our stuff. Take it back and do a little bit of questioning.”

“Think it’s The Order?” Randall asked. It did seem to be the only logical explanation, but they weren’t supposed to know where the Knights were, just like the Knights didn’t know the location of The Order, only of some of the magic they cast. 

“They don’t know who we are, do they? Or where we are?” Lilith’s attempt to sound confident fell flat.

“I think we should relocate.” Hamish decided. “Just for now. Take the hides and make it look like we’re leaving. If it’s The Order and they’re keeping an eye on us then they’ll give up eventually and we’ll be able to return. And if it’s not, well we stick to the same plan. Move out for a few months, and come back once we’ve figured something out. But for now, I need a drink.” Hamish turned out of the foyer and headed to the alcohol cabinet.

“Make it two.” Lilith called, following in his footsteps.

“Three!” Randall added after them and then starred down at the chest. “Guess I’ll be taking you back downstairs then.” He mumbled. He placed a hand on the chest and suddenly he felt like his head was on fire. His brain was burning inside his skull and all he could see was a kind of white that was not unlike a camera flash, only permanent. He lost control of his body. Every muscle tensed and refused to move against the onslaught of pain in his head. 

Something, someone, ripped him away from the chest and he found his balance barely in time to stop himself falling onto his back. Sweat trickled down his neck and forehead and his chest heaved as he sucked in oxygen. Dimly, he was aware of two hands squeezing his arms and a voice, calling his name? Was that what that was? All Randall knew was that he felt like he wasn’t quite in his body anymore and something akin to de ja vu was assaulting his senses.

Slowly, Hamish’s face came into focus in front of him. Midnight’s chest was gone from its place on the table, presumably back down to the basement, and Lilith was approaching slowly from the stairs.

Randall blinked to clear his vision. The crease in Hamish’s brow felt like it should be cause for concern but Randall’s disorientation was still making him a little fuzzy.

“Randall? Randall? Come on, say something.” Hamish was saying in front of him. Randall decided to try and stand in favour of moving his mouth, which felt like sandpaper. After his first failed attempted Hamish slung Randall’s arm over his shoulder and pulled him off the floor. Randall tried to pull away once he was standing but Hamish held on and wrapped his other arm around Randall’s waist as he led them both to the couch. 

Hamish was gentle when he put Randall down. His breathing was almost back down to a normal rate but the heat radiating off his skin was worrying Hamish. The cocktails had been forgotten mid shake and remained so until Hamish was satisfied that Randall could focus his eyes on him for long enough without drifting off somewhere else. Eventually Randall gave up on holding himself upright and slumped into the couch cushions. 

Lilith had, at some point, procured a glass of water which Randall gingerly reached out for. Hamish tracked every millimetre of Randall’s movement up until and beyond the time he had put the water back down. Hamish was still crouched in front of the couch and Randall was studiously trying to not look into his eyes. 

“I’m fine.” Randall half rasped. It was painful just to hear his voice so Hamish passed him the water back looking unconvinced. 

“For ‘fine’ that was a helluva scream.” Lilith said. She was sitting on the other side of the room with her arms folded across her chest scrutinising Randall. 

“I’m-“ Randall sighed as his argument fell flat. “I don’t know what happened. I went to grab the chest and then my head was on fire and all I could see was white.” Randall closed his eyes and sighed. He felt like every ounce of energy had been pulled out of him and his organs had been rearranged. 

“A curse on the chest?” Lilith suggested but she was sceptical of her own suggestion.

“Surely it would have affected you as well?” Hamish frowned and went to feel Randall’s forehead. Randall swatted the hand away and burrowed deeper into the couch cushions. He could feel the pain starting to recede, but he was still exhausted. He hummed in agreement with Hamish and reached pathetically for the blanket that was thrown over the back of the couch. Hamish rolled his eyes and pulled the blanket over Randall who mumbled something incoherent before he succumbed to sleep.

Hamish stood and went back to making cocktails. Lilith lent against the cabinet and watched Hamish mix with the precision from years of practice. She took the drink he offered her quickly and threw it down. Hamish looked mildly disgusted at her but didn’t take much longer to finish his own drink.

“We should see if we can find anything in the basement.” He decided.

“Someone should keep an eye on him.” Lilith nodded over to Randall. Hamish and Lilith locked eyes.

“Not it!”

“Not- dammit.” Lilith growled but took up her position on the couch with Randall without hesitation. Hamish smiled to himself seeing his pack together and headed down to the basement.

The shelves were completely bare, he couldn’t say he was particularly surprised, there had to have been good reason for Lilith to feel the need to check the chests. He sighed and worked on searching the room for any clues. None of them had been out of the house for very long and he couldn’t see a way that one person could have removed everything so thoroughly by themselves in that time. So a group of people was much more likely.

Hamish decided not to spend too much time in the basement. The place had been cleaned afterwards, he could smell the supplies as if they were right next to him. He didn’t hold out much hope of being able to figure out who did this in the immediate future. But what he could do was check on Randall. He’d been so sure that someone had attacked him. Hamish didn’t think he’d be able to get that scream out of his head for a long while.

Hamish was still feeling a bit groggy from his time in the bar, he’s fallen asleep reading he assumed since he woke up with his head on a book. It wasn’t something he had ever done before, but there was a first time for everything. Like a chest seeming to burn the mind of another wolf. Maybe there was something between Midnight and Greybeard that they didn’t know about. And now they probably never would.

Hamish made his way back upstairs with a lot on his mind. He was meant to be the leader of this little pack, because that’s what they were, not a brotherhood or a gender neutral collective, they were a pack, and he felt utterly useless when it came to something serious going on. He saw Lilith first, she had her laptop out but she wasn’t doing any work. The page on her screen was still blank and her line of sight was fixed firmly over the top of the laptop. Hamish smiled and collapsed into the chair.

“Find anything?” Lilith asked but didn’t turn away from Randall.

“No. Cleaned up after themselves well, though, and had to be more than one person.” There was a short silence and then;

“He’s not moved since you left.” Hamish considered her words and shrugged. Time to take Randall up to a proper bed then. 

Randall’s skin was still warm to touch, but mostly focused around his head now rather than his entire body. Hamish supposed that must be a good sign, that he was healing somewhat, from whatever the hell it was that happened. If Hamish could have it his way then Randall wouldn’t be leaving the house for a couple of days. But he had responsibilities as an RA and sadly Hamish could not interfere with those. It was coming up to finals and it was a stressful time for everyone and Randall, despite what he may seem, took making sure that the freshmen in his dorm were ok very seriously. He’d spent a week organising a rota to check up on each one of them for half an hour at a time just to see how things were going. Hamish called him an idiot, he didn’t need to go that far, bit Randall had a big heart. It was one of his more endearing qualities, he needed it considering his lack of beer pong skills certainly wasn’t winning him any friends.

Hamish lingered in Randall’s room long past what might have been considered normal, or acceptable. He heard Lilith making some food in the kitchen but didn’t find himself inclined to go downstairs and find out what. It wasn’t until Randall’s temperature had gone down to what Hamish considered normal that he left Randll’s room.

Downstairs he collapsed onto the couch with a drink in hand. Lilith was still attempting to write her paper and had her feet tucked up under her. A discarded plate was on the floor and she’d thrown her hair up into t a loose ponytail since he’d last seen her.

“There’s food in the kitchen.” Lilith said when he sat down. Hamish nodded and hummed in response. He still didn’t feel inclined to go and find anything to eat. He was now preoccupied with thinking about who, how, and why everything went missing from the basement, and how on earth they were going to find the missing werewolf.

Hamish set to work making a list of everything he could remember that they had. Some things he didn’t have names for so he drew them instead, or described them. There were times that trying to recall something was difficult, or there were things he could have remember but couldn’t quite snatch at the memory to write it down, and once it was gone he could scarcely remember having it in the first place.

“What’re you doing?” Lilith closed her laptop and placed it on the floor. She moved closer to Hamish and tried to peer over his shoulder.

“Making a list. Hopefully it will help us find everything that went missing from the basement.”

“Nice drawing.” She grinned at his rather crude rendition of… something.

“Shut up. It’s not like we know what half if that stuff even was anyway.”

“Yeah. We really should’ve paid more attention to what we had.”

“It’s magic, we don’t do that.”

“I guess.” Lilith paused, considering. “But maybe we should’ve read the knights’ journals. There might have been something to help us with Randall.” Hamish raised his eyes to look at her from under his furrowed brow. He could smell the guilt radiating from her, he could feel it himself. Something happened to allow people into the house, they all failed at doing something and one of them got hurt.

Hamish got himself another drink and handed one to Lilith on his way to sit back down. His list was finished, or at least it was forgotten for a time. 

“He’s gonna be fine.” Hamish muttered. He wasn’t sure if he was reassuring himself or Lilith at that point.

“We can’t say that. We don’t know what happened.” Lilith pointed out. Hamish slumped further into the couch.

“Yeah, I know.” The rest of the night was spent in silence, with Hamish offering new drinks every so often. They had nothing to start researching from, and no idea where to go to get it, so drinking their sorrows away seemed like their best plan at that time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, let's start 2020 as we mean to go on and start updating some fics. 2019 thoroughly kicked my butt on a daily basis. I'm going to rewatch the series and find my notes, but for now have a mini update. I tried to get this up to 3k but 2k seemed to be my limit. Sorry!

During the summers Randall was relieved of his RA duties and he was relieved about it. He walked around in a sort of haze to begin with. Something was tugging at the back of his mind. For a day or so he had put it down to the after effects of the chest, but now he knew it must have been something else. He felt like he’d lost a piece of himself somehow.

 

He was sitting on a bench when he got the headache again. He’d had maybe five of these since the whole chest incident, and after that Lilith and Hamish had been treating him like he might break so he had not dared to tell them what was happening. He knew the headaches were lasting longer each time they happened, feeling more like his brain was being put through a shredder. He was losing sleep, he knew that, and he knew that at some point the others would catch on. But for this moment he was happy with the freedom and privacy that not telling them was affording him. He didn’t want to end up relegated to the sidelines in the future if he could help it.

 

Something covered the light from the sun in front of him. Randall squinted up through the pain to see a pair of blue eyes staring down at him. His head flashed white hot for a second and he missed what the person had said.

 

“What?” He asked, rather unintelligently.

 

“Are you ok?” The stranger had his head tilted at a small angle as if Randall was a small creature he was trying to figure out. Randall scrambled to stand up, or at least sit straighter, before attempting to respond.

 

“Me? Yeah, I’m good. I’m good.” Randall said and he was struggling to believe himself.

 

“Ah, ok?”

 

“You look lost.” Randall said bluntly.

 

“Yeah, I guess I am. I’m looking for the admissions office.” Everything in Randall was telling him to get away from this boy, something was wrong, wrong and very bad and dangerous. But something in his gut was pulling him to the stranger. It felt like something was uncurling in his gut, something wanted him to talk to this person. And he wasn’t going to be the kind of guy to ignore the instinct of what he assumed was his wolf.

 

“Oh, cool. I can take you over, it’s on my way home.”

 

“Uh, thanks. You don’t have to, directions are fine, really.”

 

“Nah, I’m heading that way anyway. So, are you a freshman?”

 

“I will be. There’s something wrong with some kinda of paper work. I don’t really know to be honest.”

 

“Yeah, Belgrave’s paperwork is not fun. Dealt with it far too much for my liking.” Jack nodded at Randall and the conversation stalled. The walk to the admissions office was not long enough to facilitate any further interaction, and so they didn’t.

 

“Right, well, this is it. I guess I’ll be seeing you around in the fall.” Randall gave Jack a cheery wave, which he half heartedly returned.

 

When Jack stepped into the building he was greeted by a young woman who waved him through to the lobby like area which housed a few desks in a row and an office at the back. Jack’s head spun a little. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do here and wondered if coming here at all had been some kind of mistake. Did he even want to go to college? Everything he had read about himself and online suggested that he did, but maybe he should have waited a little longer. Waited until he had some kind of semblance of self before throwing himself in the deep end. But then again, what better way was there to figure out who he was then to throw himself into things, work out what worked and what didn’t.

 

Randall waited a few minutes before he turned and left. Things were warring inside of his head that he could not make sense of. For the first time since the chest incident, he knew he had to let Lilith and Hamish in. If he did not, he worried he might go insane trying to figure this out alone.

 

~~~

 

Jack had tried to read as much as he could about amnesia. He googled symptoms, side effects, causes, treatments, anything that might help him work this out. But he kept hitting blanks. Half the time it felt like his memory loss didn’t fit with what the internet was telling him, and even a few doctors had seemed perplexed at the amnesia he was displaying. Amnesia usually resolved itself on its own, that’s what he had been able to understand from his hours of google searches. And after finishing his forms for admission to Belgrave, most of which he hadn’t known the information for, he spent a long time googling the university. He wondered why some things he just seemed to instinctively know, like the school system and how it worked, about colleges and fraternities and everything involved in them. He hadn’t taken to searching too much of the house yet. There were some questions he wasn’t sure if he wanted answers to. It felt as if everything he had forgotten was personal in nature, not factual. He wasn’t sure that saying that to anyone would make any sense, but he felt it in his heart.

 

He had a few weeks to wait until he was enrolled into Belgrave and starting his life at college. He knew that there were practicalities to think about, a job for money being the priority. But it seemed his grandfather had a nice life insurance policy, if the cheque was anything to go by, even if something felt off about the whole thing. He put it down to the amnesia and set to working on seeing what he could and couldn’t remember of his school years. He wondered how much of his academic knowledge he had lost. It turned out to be very little, at least he thought so.

 

Taking to his textbooks over the summer seemed like the most natural thing for him to do. It did not take him long to discover he already had the texts he needed, stacked neatly in a pile in the corner of the garage. Jack was trying not to become perplexed by anything that happened around him any more. Coincidence had become the most common word in his vernacular.

 

Time meant little to Jack anymore. Days passed together in a blur. By the time he was getting ready to leave he was seriously questioning if he should bother going to Belgrave at all and starting to regret not trying to resolve more of his memory loss. Except every time he thought about it, something pulled his attention elsewhere. To a forgotten meal, or a new idea he wanted to research. And for those times that they were not enough to hold his attention, he would try to walk into his grandfather’s room, always stopping short of putting his hand on the door handle and flinching away as if something had burned him.

 

His mind drew him back to the curly haired student he had met in the quad. He was familiar in a sense that Jack felt safe with him. But the older boy had given no indications of feeling the same way or that he had ever known Jack. And surely someone who knew him would have said something, anything, to Jack to show that.

 

“Probably just lonely.” Jack muttered. He shook his head and pulled a soda from the refrigerator. He was holding pages and pages of research in his hands. His scruffy writing stared back at him . Black notes for what he had found online, blue for things the doctors had told him, pink for things he felt like he might remember, and orange for everything that was not making sense. There was a lot of orange.

 

~~~

 

“So what are we doing about our rogue wolf?” Randall asked as he walked into the house. The Knights had moved to a small rented house about ten miles to the east of where they had been living. Since they had moved, they had been trying to brainstorm what might be the best way to find the missing wolf. So far, though, they were coming up blank.

 

“Either we find them or we hope they die.” Lilith said.

 

“Oh well isn’t that cheerful.” Randall rolled his eyes and dropped onto the couch. He cracked open the soda in his hand and threw his feet up onto the table in front of him. Hamish sent him a short glare from the chair opposite but said nothing. “And, my dear Lilith, if neither of those things happen?”

 

“I don’t know. It’s not like we have a ‘rogue wolf searching: 101’ class.”

 

“Stunning observation there.” Hamish saw Lilith start to rise up from her seat.

 

“Neither of you are helping.” Hamish cut across what he could feel was going to quickly become an argument. Lilith sunk back down, only momentarily placated, Hamish was sure, but placated nonetheless. “We’re all trying to work out something new here and none of us has any idea how to do it. So I suggest, instead of talking ourselves in circles like we have for the past month, we take a break. Until someone has some new information we should just let it go and get on with school and work and... stuff.” Hamish trailed off. Lilith looked entirely disinterested and Randall had that look on his face that he had been getting on and off since he’d been, whatever he’d been, by the chest.

 

“Whatever.” Lilith pulled her laptop off the table next to her and pushed her headphones in.

 

Hamish dropped his head into his hands and closed his eyes. He was unsettled. He had been on sabbatical last year, of course he knew that, but sometimes when he tried to grasp the details of his travels and what the pack had done together they would slip away for a moment only to return again so vividly that it hurt. The colours and the sounds were too bright and sent him reeling. Hamish was putting it down to the stress he had been under with this rogue wolf situation and trying to make sure Randall was ok. Which was a full-time occupation when the boy was too stubborn to tell his friends anything.

 

Meanwhile, ever since the chest fiasco Lilith seemed to have become even more Lilith, if that was even possible. If Hamish were a smarter man he might theorise that Lilith had been scared of losing Randall. Instead, Hamish was just confused and stressed and trying really really hard to sort their lives out. Trying to keep his pack together was beginning to wear on him and he felt more tired than he had in years. It was in these moments that Hamish would kill for someone more experienced, older, wiser, anything more-er than him to guide the way. And he was kicking himself that they hadn’t taken their roles more seriously when they had the chance. That they hadn’t spent more time researching their powers and responsibilities. More than ever Hamish felt like they were just kids playing at being super heroes, and not even playing very well.

 

Hamish fell asleep with a heavy heart and mind most nights. When he fell asleep at all. His insomnia was getting out of hand and he knew he should do something. He was just grateful that the wolf in him helped keep it hidden.

 

“Guess Randall isn’t the only one keeping secrets.” Hamish mumbled as he finally crawled into bed at 3:34 am. It took another hour of tossing and turning for Hamish to finally fall into a fitful sleep. Dreaming of a freshman who joined two secret societies and fought for security, only to forget everything in the morning.

 

~~~

 

Annabelle ran her fingers through her hair and looked in the mirror. She could blend into the background, work her way into the hearts and minds of others with only the effort it took to push a blade of grass. But this was different. This time she was involved. Emotionally invested in these people and their lives. She had placed herself into a precarious position. Teetering on the edge of inappropriate and just slightly leaning into safety.

 

She had not heard the name _Morton_ for some time. It was not a happy name for her. Now she would need to get used to hearing it a lot more often.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in the midst of my final year university essays and my dissertation so probably won't be updated with any frequency for a while, but hope you enjoyed and I do have many plans for where this is going!
> 
> If you notice something wrong with spelling/grammar let me know and I'd be happy to fix it. I've been through a few times but I always miss things. Thanks!


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